Istivin Adventure Path D&D 3.5 Tuesday 4PM-8PM PDT (GMT-7)

[Griogre]

I am going to run a short three module adventure path, Istivin, on Tuesdays and am looking for a few more players. It should take about 5-8 sessions. Characters start at 11th level. It’s ok if you are not very familiar with FG but this is a bad game to learn to play D&D on as player inexperience could kill off the whole party. I am looking for mature players who will commit to showing up and to having a good time.

I am running core rules only plus the new character classes, general, divine, heritage (good only), and metamagic feats out of the Players Handbook II. The campaign is set in the World of Greyhawk. No knowledge of the setting is required. All characters must be good. I’ll post the character generation rules in a separate post.

I am looking for five maybe six players. I currently have three players with the following tentative characters: a Bard with a touch of rogue (diplomat type), and Rogue. I’m not sure what the player is going to be yet maybe an arcane caster or melee type.

I use voice so you will also need a working mic and headphones or a headset in addition to Fantasy Grounds.

If you are interested in playing, post here or PM me. I’ll take players on a first come first served order.

[Griogre]

Game Rules
The Istivin campaign will use the D&D 3.5 core rules only (or 3.5 SRD revised – but not anything not also in the core rules, i.e. no psionics). I am allowing the four new characters out of the PH2, also - and most of the feats. I am only going to use these “House Rules”:

1) Characters must be good (the dungeon doesn’t need help).
2) 3.0 weapon size rules (https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/community/showpost.php?p=13448&postcount=33) (to help the small sized races).
3) Take up to 8 lbs off the weight of clothes (to help the weak - no negative values).
4) The "Animated" shield magical property is not allowed.

Player Handbook II House Rules
Assume all rules are per the Player's Handbook II 3.5 Edition and in play unless they are listed or excluded below. Consider eveything in this book being used on a trial basis and subject to modification or exclusion if it develops into a problem.

Chapter 2 Expanded Classes
This entire chapter is excluded from use in the campaign. Some good ideas but very uneven benefit levels.

Chapter 3 New Feats
General Feats, Adaptable Flanker pg 71-74. For the pupose of this feat you only threaten the eight squares around you – no reach.

General Feats, Melee Weapon Mastery pg 81. Benefit is as on the table pg 72 not as in the text. Thus the attack roll bonus is for Weapon Focus and is +1 not +2 as stated in the feat text.

General Feats, Range Weapon Mastery pg 82. Benefit is as on the table pg 73 not as in the text. Thus the attack roll bonus is for Weapon Focus and is +1 not +2 as stated in the feat text. You do get the + 20 to range in addition.

Ceremony Feats, pg 86. Not allowed.

Combat Form Feats, pg 87. Not allowed.

Tactical Feats, pg 92. Not allowed.

Chapter 6 Adventuring Group
This entire chapter is excluded from use in the campaign. Teamwork benefits are a interesting idea but not worth the extra hassel over just a plain assist.

Chapter 7 Affiliations
This entire chapter is excluded from PC use in the campaign. Too much hassel for the benefit at the player level however large scale regional and world wide events may be the results of interactions similar to those described in the chapter.

Chapter 8 Rebuilding Your Character
This entire chapter is excluded from use in the campaign.

Character Generation
1) Use Standard 25 Point Buy (per DMG pg 169) for generating stats.
2) Your character gets Max Hit Points at 1st Level, and Fixed Hit Points (per DMG pg 198 for all other levels).
3) Your character must be a race from the Players Handbook.

Equipment
1) Use the standard wealth table (DMG pg 135).
2) You may only buy items from the DMG or PH.
3) You may spend no more than 50% of your wealth on any one magic or special material item. There is no limit for masterwork or mundane items not made of special materials, i.e. armor.
4) You may buy no more than one “item” of each special material – i.e. no more than 1 mithral item and 1 cold iron item and 1 adamantine item, etc. For the purposes of this rule, up to 50 arrows, crossbow bolts, sling bullets or other types of ammunition are considered one “item”.
5) Characters 1st to 6th level may buy only “minor” (per DMG Magic Tables) magic items. 7th to 11th may buy minor or medium magic items. 12+ level characters may buy minor, medium or major magic items.
6) Before you can purchase a "medium" or "major" magic item you must have a "pyramid" of lesser items. To buy a medium item you must first buy two permanent (non-charged) minor items. To buy a second medium you would need to first buy two more permanent minor magic items. To buy a major magic item would require buying two permanent medium items and four permanent minor items.
7) Wands must be bought fully charged.

Minor, Medium and Major Magic Items
The tables in the DMG are not as clear as I would like. Here is the minor, medium and major magic item breakdowns:

Armor & Shields: Minor < 5,000 gp; Medium 5,000-20,000 gp; Major > 20,000 gp.

Weapons: Minor < 8,000 (exception plain +2 weapons with NSA are minor – i.e. a +2 dagger is minor, a +1 Flaming Dagger is not); Medium 8,000-32,000 gp (exception plain +4 weapons with NSA are medium – i.e. a +4 dagger is medium, a +2 Holy Dagger is not); Major > 32,000 gp.

Potions: All potions are considered minor non permanent items.

Rings: Minor < 8500 gp; Medium 8,500-20,000 gp; Major > 20,000 gp.

Rods: Minor NA; Medium < 11,000 gp; Major 11,000+ gp.

Scrolls: Any scroll of a spell you can cast - Minor non permanent. You may not buy scrolls of spells too high for you to cast or not on your spell list. You may not buy more scrolls of any level spells than you can cast (for those who memorize) or know (for those who don't prepare spells ahead of time).

Staves: Minor NA; Medium < 30,000 gp; Major 30,000+ gp.

Wands: Minor < 2,500 gp; Medium 2,500-6,500; Major > 6,500. These are non permanent items.

Wondrous: Minor < 7,500; Medium 7,500-27,999; Major 28,000+.

Fantasy Grounds Ruleset
I will be using the default d20 ruleset that came with fantasy grounds. I'm doing this to avoid any ruleset download. This also means you can make a local character with the d20 ruleset ahead of time and it *should* import fine. This seemed to work well at the first session and I encourage you set up local characters ahead of time. This will cut down on in game data input time and give us a little more time to just play.

I probably forgot something. If you have a question - ask.

[uncc234]

Certainly want to give it a shot. I have had bad experiences with higher level campaigns, shattered limbs and swiss cheese gnomes and all.

Looking to play a Elf ranger or half-elf ceric.
This I will leave totally up to a vote made by the group.
SOO CAST YOUR VOTE VIA PMING ME NOT THE FORUM!
Including you Mr.DM sir.
I will post the results on Sunday at 8:00pm @ GMT-6 so vote now!

What Voice chat communication program do you use?

Can we get a little background on the world if we are unfimiliar?
*UNCC Begs the dm for background info*

I would assume this is going to involve characters Role playing 25-35% of the time and dungeoneering the rest, if that is the case should we give the characters in the group a back story or not?

As the good little cyborb I am, I will conform to any and all rules for the purpose of maintaining good fun play instead of argumentation.

[Griogre]

Higher level D&D can be really silly. Running out of just the core and parts of the PH2 will help with that and general balance is not as important in an adventure path as the characters only need to balanced for the adventures not for the rest of the world so to speak.

As this is a short run of modules I'm not as interested as I would be normally be in character backstory. What I do want is why the character is *still* an adventurer. By this level the character probably could have easily retired having made enough gold to comfortably live out the rest of his life. This being the case *something* must drive the character to continue to adventure. I'd like to see a paragraph or so on those reason(s) in the notes of the character.

I use teamspeak because I have access to a dedicated TS server. You can download the client here (https://www.goteamspeak.com/index.php?page=downloads) if you don't have it. You want the 2.0.32.60 client.

Greyhawk was the original TSR world for D&D. The actual world back story is not very important for this game other than it has a well developed set of nation states. Most adventures happen on the frontiers either on the edge between civilization and the wilderness or between feuding states. Istivin is the capital of the Marchlands of Sterich - a state surrounded by wilderness on most sides. I will post up a detailed back story for this adventure by tonight or tomorrow. However it is assumed the characters are new to Istivin with the adventure starting pretty much outside the city's gates.

The 25-35% is probably right for RP, but there is a good variety of among the other encounters of city, wilderness and underground.

[Griogre]

Istivin is the capital of the Marchlands of Sterich - a state surrounded by wilderness on most sides. It was founded about 800 years ago by the House of Qualtaine. The Marchland’s primary sources of income are vast mining operations in the untamed and dangerous Crystalmist and Joten Mountain Ranges. Maintaining theses mines often meant cutting through tribes of savage humanoids and giants. Protecting its primary income has been a constant struggle for Sterich through its entire lifetime. With its soaring wall and sturdy keep, Istivin and its citizens weathered many brutal incursions.

Istivin has not been lucky over the last 20 years. Eighteen years ago it fell under attack from a wholly unanticipated opponent – Loth, Demon Queen of Spiders. An immense black hemisphere of eldritch energy appeared over Krelont Keep and much of the city’s central square, completely cutting off the government and constabulary housed within. The blackness expanded, every day engulfing more of the city. At the same time organized raids by giant-led savage humanoids surged into the lowlands of Sterich, hitting the nation’s border forts with devastating effect. The timely intervention of brave and powerful adventurers revealed the source of organization to be the work of ebony skinned elves from below the Crystalmists. Desending into the depths of the earth, these adventurers penetrated the fabled Vault of the Drow and ultimately ventured to the Abyss itself to solve the mystery of the black hemisphere, which turned out to be the manifestation of an attempht to draw Istivin – and eventually the entire world – into her hideous Demonweb. With Lolth’s machinations defeated, Krelont Keep and its inhabitants returned to Istivin unharmed.

Ten years ago, mountain dwarves from the southwest sent warning to Istivin of a new giant and savage humanoid force gather near the mountain headwaters of the Davish River. Soon thereafter contact with the dwarfholds ceased altogether. While Istivin moved against the threatening incursion, it failed to anticipate the speed and ferocity with which the assault would come. The nation’s inadequately prepared and undermanned border forts buckled under the fierce assault and many of their surviving soldiers fled to the interior to defend the capital. Sterich’s western baronies fell quickly as the forces of the Giant King Galmoor marched for Istivin. Overmatched, Earl Querchard reluctantly ordered a complete evacuation. Less than a decade after Loth’s black hemisphere, Sterich and its capital, Istivin, had fallen.

Humbled, Earl Querchard fled to the city of Flen, in the neighboring Kindom of Keoland. Though now virtually independent, the Marchland of Sterich had been originally established as a Keoland vassal state and King Skotti felt some responsibility for its fall. He promoted Querchard to the title of marquis, and installed him at the head of a vast army of reclamation that struck back against the giants eight years ago. When the blooded army hacked its way to Istivin, they discovered a completely abandoned capital, with no sign of King Galmoor or his savage host. The city’s ancient buildings remained almost wholly intact, unlike the other conquered and razed settlements of Sterich. A puzzled Querchard resumed his position of rulership in Krelont Keep and set to the task of liberating the whole of the March. Within two years, all of the lowlands had been reclaimed, but true peace never came. Ruined villages and border forts to the south and west lie empty not yet resettled.

Some think Istivin is an unlucky place, tainted by its time in the abyss. A shadow of dread is said to hang over the town. Nightmares are said to plague the residents and some vanish altogether, including the Marquis himself, gone now for four years.

* * *

I will give more specific party background when I see which characters types are going to be in the party and explain why your group is outside the gates of Istivin.

[Rilmarion]

Hello.

I am a player who know the 3.5 D&D game well. I have DM before on a message board before, set within the Greyhawk world as well, as well as played on it as well. I have played in several IRC D&D games, mostly set in the FR campaign setting (not to familiar with it afraid). I own the PHB 3.0 & 3.5, DMG 3.0 & 3.5 as well as the MM 3.0. I also own the Eberron PHB and Campaign setting books. So I am well versed in the world of D&D.

I would like to play in your game. I have access to TeamSpeak already (the version you suggested). My only concern is that I have just purchased FG about 2 hours ago. I will be going through the guide tonight completely as well as playing around with the Campaign that I received with my full license. As you have stated that you are fine with people not being familiar with the FG, i thought that this would be the perfect game to join to get a little experience.

So if you will take me, I will gladly join.

Also, I may have missed it, but did you post a time when the game sessions will start?

[Griogre]

Rilmarion, If you know D&D, FG will not be a problem. The most important thing about FG is learning to make hotkeys to speed things up. With a good set of hot keys (and mini lists) you will almost never have to open your character sheet.

The starting time is in the title of the first post: Tuesdays 4-8PM PDT. Let me know if you can make this time. If you can, you are in.

[Rilmarion]

okay, so if I have done this correctly (myself being -5 GMT), that means you'll be starting around 6-8pm and running till 10-11pm (times depend on DST which I have here)

If this correct, then yeah I can play.

[Griogre]

That sounds correct on the time you might want to see what characters the others are playing on the thread here: https://www.fouruglymonsters.com/community/showthread.php?t=1469&page=2

[Griogre]

Rilmarion, can you have a local character done by Tueday?

[Griogre]

Just a bump I am still looking for at least one player.

[Griogre]

I currently have a bard, fighter, and rogue. I would like five players so an arcane and divine caster would help the group. If you are interested in running such a character post here or PM me.

[Griogre]

Looks like I have an arcane caster now. The party could still use a cleric. PM or post here if you are interested. The game should be starting next Tuesday.

[Griogre]

The Istivin Game is currently full. Thanks for the interest.